1. Masarykova univerzita
Filozofická fakulta
Katedra anglistiky a amerikanistiky
Bakalářská diplomová práce
2011 Eliška
Charvátová
Masaryk University
Faculty of Arts
Department of English
and American Studies
English Language and Literature
Eliška Charvátová
Latin Loanwords in English
Bachelor’s Diploma Thesis
Supervisor: doc. PhDr. Jana Chamonikolasová, Ph.D.

2. 2011
I declare that I have worked on this
thesis independently,
using only the primary and secondary sources
listed in the bibliography.
……………………………………………..
Author’s signature

3. I would like to thank doc. PhDr. Jana Chamonikolasová, Ph.D. and prof.
RNDr. Václav Blažek, CSc.
who were kind enough to offer valuable suggestions and ideas for the paper as
well as supplementary
tips for the
list of bibliography.
Table of Contents
Introduction. 1
I. The Language Contact. 3
1. The Language Contact Schemes. 3
2. Sources of New Words. 4
3. Borrowing. 4
3.1 The Definition of Borrowing. 4
3.2 The Levels of Language Borrowing. 5
3.3 The Reasons for Lexical Borrowing. 6
3.4 The Process of Lexical Borrowing. 8
3.5 The Attitudes Towards Borrowing. 8
4. Loanwords. 9

4. 4.1 The Definition of a Loanword. 9
4.2 The Functions of Loanwords. 10
4.3 The Lexical Integration of Loanwords. 11
II. The History of the English and Latin Languages. 13
1. The Latin Language. 13
1.1 Chronological Classification of Latin. 13
1.1.1 Archaic Latin. 13
1.1.2 Classical and Vulgar Latin. 14
1.1.3 Christian Latin. 15
1.1.4 Latin of the Middle Ages. 16
1.1.5 Renaissance Latin. 16
1.1.6 Modern Latin. 16
1.2 The Linguistic Influence of Latin. 17
2. The English Language. 18
2.1 Chronological Classification of English. 18
2.1.1 Old English. 18
2.1.2 Middle English. 20
2.1.3 Modern English. 22
3. The English-Latin Analogy. 23
III. Latin Loanwords in English. 24
1. Latin Loanwords in the Old English Period (449-1100) 24
1.1 Continental Development. 25
1.1.1 Continental Loanwords. 25
1.2 Insular Development. 26
1.2.1 Insular Development after the Roman Conquest. 26
1.2.2 Insular Development after the Germanic Conquest. 28
2. Latin Loanwords in the Middle English Period (1100-1500) 31
2.1 English, Latin and French. 31
2.2 Loanwords. 32
2.3 Aureate Terms. 34
3. Latin Loanwords in the Modern English Period (1500 – present) 34
3.1 Characteristics of Loanwords. 35

5. 3.1.1 The Englishing of Latin Words. 36
3.2 Loanwords. 36
3.3 The Latin-English Controversy. 37
IV. Chronological Classification of Loanwords. 38
1. Old English Loanwords. 40
2. Middle English Loanwords. 48
3. The Eleventh Century. 49
4. The Twelfth Century. 50
5. The Thirteenth Century. 51
6. The Fourteenth Century. 54
7. The Fifteenth Century. 81
8. The Sixteenth Century. 108
9. The Seventeenth Century. 180
10. The Eighteenth Century. 252
11. The Nineteenth Century. 281
12. The Twentieth Century. 307
13. Chronologically Unspecified Loanwords. 308
14. Commentary on the Chronological Classification. 309
of Latin Loanwords in English. 309
Conclusion. 311
Bibliography. 314
Works cited. 314
Works consulted. 316
English Summary. 319
Czech Summary. 321
Appendices. 322
Appendix 1 – List of Abbreviations. 322
Appendix 2 – Common Prefixes in English. 325

6. Introduction
Latin has undoubtedly been one of the most influential languages in the
history of the
civilization. Its impact on not only European nations has been immense. From
the political,
cultural and social aspects of Roman lifestyle to the linguistic features,
the Roman legacy has
become a natural part of our lives. English is no exception to this
statement. It was at the time
of the very first encounters between the Romans and the Germanic tribes that
the English-Latin
history started to be written. Since then, the relationship between the two
languages has undergone
several stages of development. The changes that occured during these stages
affected not only the
nature but also the number of loanwords that were adopted into English.
This thesis focuses on the historical development of the two languages in
connection to the
frequency of borrowing respectively the number of loanwords at various
periods in history. The
social, political and cultural circumstances of the English-Latin relations
affected the amount of
loanwords borrowed at particular time periods. This hypothesis leads to the
main research question
of this thesis: In which periods was the number of words taken over from
Latin into English the
highest respectively the lowest and what was the cause of this? The goal of
this thesis is to
provide an answer to this question through theoretical as well as practical
research.
The thesis comprises of a theoretical and a lexical part. The theoretical
part is further divided
into three chapter. The first chapter deals with the theory of the language
contact, borrowing and
loanwords. It describes various language contact schemes, functions of
loanwords and the reasons of
borrowing as well as different attitudes toward it. The second chapter deals
with the historical
development of both languages separately. It gives a chronological
classification of both Latin and
English history. The purpose of this chapter is to create a background for
the following third
chapter that deals with the common linguistic history of the two languages.
The three major periods
of English, that is Old English, Middle English and Modern English are
defined within the context
of Latin influence focusing on the effect that such influence has had on the
English vocabulary.
The lexical part - that is the chronological classification itself -
represents the core of this
thesis. Words that were adopted from Latin are sorted into thirteen groups
according to the
centuries or time periods they were adopted in. A commentary to
this division has been
provided at the end of the fourth chapter. The conclusion sums up all the
information reached in
distinctive chapters and fully answers the research question. There are two
appendices that
complete this work, that is a list of abbreviations and a list of prefixes.

7. I. The Language Contact
One of the main reasons why languages change is that they come into contact
with other languages.
(Schendl 2001: 55) Such linguistic contact usually occurs as a consequence of
social and cultural
development between two nations. The degree of mutual influence is given by
factors such as the
length of the language contact, the extent of the communication between
different speech
communities and the number and status of the bilingual speakers. (Schendl
2001: 56)^ The different
historical circumstances and the reasons why languages come into contact can
influence not only the
social aspects of the relationship between two languages but they can also
affect linguistic
aspects of a language that are being adopted such as syntax, pronunciation,
grammar and lexis. This
chapter defines the various types of contact between two languages, focusing
on the influence that
such an interaction may have. It further deals with one of the major
influences of the language
contact – lexical borrowing and adoption of loanwords. The following theory
has been, where
possible, supplied with Latin-English reference to the particular matter.
1. The Language Contact Schemes
Görlach distinguishes between several patterns of language contact. (Görlach
1997: 138)^
The first scheme is defined by two co-existent spoken languages. This kind of
contact is typical of
mixed-speech communities and border region areas. In this case, transferred
words are normally

8. integrated into the receiving language. This kind of language contact affects
common daily life –
however, its impact may be restricted only to certain domaines.
The second scheme that Görlach mentions is the distant contact scheme. This
scheme applies
predominantly to business relations during which transfer can happen over
great distances – such as
import of foreign goods. Here, the impact of the language contact is
restricted to changes in
lexis. It often occurs mainly in written form and does not require
bilinguals.
The third type of contact between two languages occurs when the contact is
limited to borrowings
from book languages. The transfer is notably based on written forms; words
are not well integrated
and only a possible later contact with the spoken medium can lead to
corrections, especially in
pronunciation. (Görlach 1997: 138)
As for the case of English-Latin relations, the contact between the two
languages has not been of
the same nature throughout the history. From the period of the Roman
influence in Europe, when
English was confonted with Latin on everyday basis, adopting words mainly
through spoken Latin,
through the time when Latin was primarily a source of ‘learned words’ and a
so called ‘book
language’, to the revival of Latin in Renaissance, the two languages have
undergone several changes
that altered the relationship between them. Therefore, the kind of mutual
contact should be viewed
rather as a combination of the language contact patterns as Görlach drafted
them, than as just one
them. The affect of such various circumstances, as suggested before, can have
multiple linguistic
consequences. The following text, deals with the lexical influence of the
language contact.
2. Sources of New Words
Francis points out that with each change in the physical and cultural
environment, there is a new
demand for new meanings, respectively new words. These words may come from
several sources – the
principal ones being borrowing, derivation, compounding, back formation,
clipping, blends,
acronyms, proper names, sound imitation and coinage. He adds, that in English
the most important
source of new words has always been borrowing. The borrowing has been so
extensive that by far, the
greater part of the contemporary English vocabulary is made up of borrowed
rather than native
words. (Francis 1965: 131)
^
3. Borrowing
3.1 The Definition of Borrowing

9. Haugen, in his analysis on linguistic borrowing, says that there are three
prerequisites for a
process of borrowing to be able to occur. First, we must assume, that every
speaker attempts to
reproduce previously learned linguistic patterns. Second, among the new
patterns which he may
learn, are those of a language different from his own. And third, if he
reproduces the new
linguistic patterns, he must not do so not in the context of the language in
which he learned them,
but in a context of another language. If all the three conditions are
fulfilled, we may speak of an
act of borrowing. To summarize, the process of borrowing can be defined as
the attempted
reproduction in one language of patterns previously found in another. (Haugen
1950: 212)^
3.2 The Levels of Language Borrowing
Two languages can influence eachother on various levels. Görlach elaborates
on their importance and
defines the influence of these levels. (Görlach 1997: 143-6)^
First, a language can be modified at a writing system and spelling system
level. Latin-English
relations is a perfect example of such modifications. Latin provided Old
English with Latin
alphabet largely determining the value of individual graphemes by Latin
conventions. Moreover,
individual words were affected when spelling and pronunciation had diverged
from those of the
etymon, in particular where spellings were made to conform with those of the
original Latin or
Greek by Renaissance grammarians.
A second level of influence is the level of phonology. It is obvious, that
the process of phonetic
adaptation of loanwords can be quite complex. Also, this level of influence
is sociolinguistically
relevant, since knowledge of the foreign language will affect the
pronunciation of loanwords in the
receiving language.
The morphological level is another field where one language can bring about
changes in another.
Here, Görlach speaks about a necessity to distinguish between open and closed
sets of words. While
the borrowing from open sets is the most common borrowing (borrowing of
lexemes), the borrowing
from closed sets is not that common.
The level of syntax can be affected during the process of borrowing as well.
For instance,
unidiomatic translation or deliberate adoption of foreign syntactical
patterns can lead to new
structures and modifications. For instance, in Renaissance prose, the
imitation of Latin structures
is particularly apparent and it extends to units far beyond the sentence.
Finally, the lexical level, which is probably the most influential and the
richest one of all the
above mentioned. It is a level that includes adoption of loanwords,
loanblends, loanshifts,

10. doublets and calques and it is also the level the following text is going to
be dealing with.
(Görlach 1997: 143-6)
3.3 The Reasons for Lexical Borrowing
The circumstances under which a language contact occurs, as has been pointed
out earlier, are
important and vary. The way two languages intertwine is influenced by not
only the time, place and
people – these are the general factors – but also by more linguistically
specific factors. These
are the most common reasons for lexical borrowing (as Görlach and Weinreich
drafted them in their
works (Görlach 1997: 149-50, Weinreich 1974: 56-60)):
· Gaps in the indigenous lexis
§ The word is taken over together with the new content and the new object.
§ A well-known content has no word to designate it.
§ Existing expressions are insufficient to render specific nuances.
Lexical borrowing of this kind can be described as a consequence of the fact
that using ready-made
designations is more economical than describing things afresh. Weinreich also
mentions here the
constant need for synonyms which are generally gladly accepted by the
receiving language. As far as
synonyms are concerned, Latin has been a great source of synonyms in English,
especially since the
Renaissance period. Weinreich further adds, that a language can also satisfy
its need for
euphemisms, slang words and cacophemisms borrowing.
· Previous weakening of the indigenous lexis
§ The content had been experimentally rendered by a number of unsatisfactory
expressions.
§ The content had been rendered by a word weakened by homonymy, polysemy, or
being part of an
obsolescent type of word-formation.
§ An expression which is connotationally loaded needs to be replaced by a
neutral expression.
Here, Weinreich speaks about the ‘low frequency of words’ i.e. if the
indigenous lexis has words
for concepts that are not frequent in the language, these words become less
stable and more subject
to oblivion and replacement.
· Associative relations
§ A word is borrowed after a word of the same family has been adopted.
§ The borrowing is supported by a native word of similar form.
§ ‘Corrections’: an earlier loanword is adapted in form / replaced by a new
loanword.

11. The part that associative borrowing plays, is also noteworthy. It is very
common for a word that
has been adopted to be accompanied by the other parts of speech that are
related to it. For
instance, the word iust was later adopted also in the forms of the following
words: justice, judge,
judicial and judgement.
· Special extralinguistic conditions
§ Borrowing of words needed for rhymes and metre.
§ Adoptions not motivated by necessity but by fashion and prestige.
§ Words left untranslated because the translator was incompetent, lazy or
anxious to stay close to
his source.
Weinreich supports this function of borrowing by saying that the symbolic
association of the source
language in a contact situation with social values, positive or negative, is
a very important
factor of language contact resp. lexical borrowing. If one language is
endowed with prestige it is
highly probable that the other language will adopt loanwords as means of
displaying the social
status which its knowledge symbolizes. This can be observed in the so called
‘learned borrowings’
of Latin phrases in English and in the unnecessary borrowing of everyday
designations for things
which have excellent names in the languge which is being spoken. (Görlach
1997: 149-50, Weinreich
1974: 56-60)
It is true that most new foreign words were adopted into English for one of
the above enumerated
reasons. However, it should be also noted, that there are many cases when
borrowing occured without
any apparent reason.
In the case of Latin loanwords adopted into English, the range of reasons for
borrowing is quite
wide. From the obvious necessity to find new names for objects that were not
known in the British
Isles before the Roman conquest, to the time when Latin was no longer a
language of a conquered
nation but a prestigeous and highly reputable feature of the upper class
society, reasons for
adoption probably cover most of the above mentioned.
3.4 The Process of Lexical Borrowing
Görlach defines the process of borrowing or the integration process as the
“gradual accomodation of
a foreign word to the structures of the receiving language“. In many cases,
the word is first
accepted into a peripheral system and integrated only later. Words that refer
to object and
concepts restricted to the foreign culture are likely to remain unintegrated.
In some cases, the
foreigness may be deliberately preserved by retaining foreign graphemes and
phonemes. (Görlach
1997: 153)^

12. In the context of English-Latin relations this applies to several semantic
fields. For instance, in
medicine (names of bones in the human body), or in botany (names of plants),
were adopted without
much change in graphemes. So were some words of everyday communication such
as via, recipe, etc.,
veto or post scriptum.
Görlach furher points out that words which are not fully integrated indicate
by their form where
they were derived from. However, fully accommodated loanwords can also
preserve traces of their
origin and indicate the direction of the borrowing process. He then mentions
the following four
directions (Görlach 1997: 153-154):
· Phonological (OE sealm ← psalmus – cluster reduction)
· Morphological (cherry, pl. cherries ← cherise – incorrect
segmentation)
· Word-formation (method ← Gr. met + hodos)
· Meaning (spirit ← spiritus – narrower meaning
in
receiving language)
Once again, it is important to bear in mind that the process of integration
is very much dependent
on the circumstances under which a word is being incorporated. The social
situation as well as
intelectual level of people involved play an important role. In addition, the
process of borrowing
usually tends to be a rather gradual and slow one during which the form of a
word adopted might
change even several times.
3.5 The Attitudes Towards Borrowing
Naturally, the attitudes towards borrowing and loanwords range from one
extreme to the other i.e.
from the strict opposition to borrowing to its full support. Those, who have
chosen resistance to
borrowing, argue, that the field is sufficiently supplied with native
lexemes, and that the
adoption of loanwords may therefore be merely fashionable and not permanent.
They also say that
greater phonological and morphological differences make the adoption
difficult, and should
therefore be avoided. The history of English serves well to illustrate stages
in which loanwords
were being adopted quite freely and frequently to those time periods when the
rendering of foreign
concepts with native material predominated.
Discussions about the value of admissibility of loanwords in connection with
Latin words that were
being adopted became particularly topical in the sixteenth century. The
proponents of loanwords

13. claimed that the emancipation and expansion of the vernacular needed foreign
words for both lexical
gaps and rhetorical ornament. However, at the same time, excessive use of
unnecessary loanwords was
frequently criticized, and the borrowings were often derogatively referred to
as ‘inkhorn terms’ by
language puritans. Some of the famous defenders of English of that time were
Sir Thomas Elyot,
Roger Ascham, George Puttenham, Richard Mulcaster, Sir John Cheke and Thomas
Wilson. (Baugh & Cable
1993: 199, 212-5, Görlach 1997: 147)
On the other hand, there have always been those who defended borrowing and
felt that their language
was being enriched by the adoption of new words rather than discriminated. As
John Dryden, an
influential English poet, literary critic and playwright, wrote: “We have
enough in England to
supply our necessity, but if we will have things of magnificence and
splendour, we must get them by
commerce.“ (Baugh & Cable 1993: 215) And it is not just English which has
borrowed frequently;
Latin and Greek had enriched themselves in this way as well.
4. Loanwords
4.1 The Definition of a Loanword
Loanwords are one of the possible outcomes of the process of borrowing.
Görlach defines a loanword
as „ a foreign item that is borrowed at word level or above“ (as a loan
phrase). He goes on to say
that both form and content are affected in the process of borrowing and in
later integration,
mainly by adaptation to the formal categories of the receiving language and
by selection of a
meaning (that has to coexist with indigenous equivalents). (Görlach 1997:
145)
4.2 The Functions of Loanwords
The functions of loanwords and the reasons for borrowing new words are
closely connected. There are
four main functions of loanwords. (Görlach 1997: 151)
a. Loanwords serve to designate foreign objects and concepts for which a
descriptive paraphrase
would be clumsy or ambiguous.
b. They serve to fill lexical gaps for concepts not properly named.
c. They contribute to a more precise differentiation.
d. They facilitate international communication.
If we were to apply these functions of loanwords to the Latin-English
relations, all of the four
functions would be applicable to Latin loans. Let us look at each particular
function more closely.

14. Ad a. The first Latin loanwords were of military character. Naturally, the
first contact between
the two nations was the period of Roman rule in Europe, therefore there was a
necessity to
establish terms for new weapons, armor, battling techniques etc. Later, when
the conquered nation
began to accomodate to the new culture of its conquerors and businesses
started to take up, new
terms for dresses, textiles, vessels, plants and agriculture were in social
demand. In the Middle
Ages and later on, in Rennaissance, there was another wave of demand for
words that would give
names to new concepts from the field of science, religion, music, poetry etc.
Most of these words
have been preserved in the English languge till today.
Ad b. The second point is very much connected to the first one. Once again,
there were words for
which the term was not an apposite one. These had to be replaced with more
suitable terms which
were very often of Latin origin.
Ad c. This function applies to situations when there is a need for a more
precise distinguishing of
similar concepts. New loans are adopted because new semantic or stylistic
contrasts have to be
taken into account. This function of loanwords has repeatedly been praised as
a great advantage of
the English language due to its ability to reflect the smallest nuances in
meaning.
Ad d. Latin has been, until the present day, a great facilitator of
communication in many fields.
Since the very early beginnings of medicine, astrology, zoology and other
sciences, Latin has
occupied the position of a lingua franca in these sciences making it easier
not only communicate
more efficiently but also to learn and understand more quickly. The reason
why doctors or botanists
from distant parts of the world can understand eachother without having a
common language is the
result of such function of Latin in the historical developement.
Jespersen supports this statement by saying that loanwords have
not only been the
milestones of philology, but also the milestones of general history. That is
because they show us
the course of civilization and give us valuable information as to the inner
life of nations when
plain dates and annals can tell us only so much. When a trace of an exanche
of loanwords cannot be
found in two languages, it implies the two nations most probably have had no
substantial contact
with each other. However, if they have been in contact, the number of
loanwords and moreover their
quality will inform us of their reciprocal relations – on which domains of
human activity one has
been superior to the other etc. (Jespersen 1919: 29-30)^ J. P. Wild, who has
dedicated much of his
research to the relationship between a borrowed word and a borrowed item,
takes Jespersen’s
statement even further. He believes that in the context of Roman Britain a
loanword which denotes a

15. concrete object may with fair probability be taken as evidence in itself that
the object, too, was
borrowed. Having concluded this, Wild establishes the degree of probability
of parallel borrowing
of noun and object. He further claims that the thesis that loanword implies
loan-object is
untenable for only a small proportion of loanwords (such as the terminology
for parts of the body).
(Wild 1976: 57) Wild also believes that loanwords shed light on fields where
historical rather than
archaeological sources are normally informative. The Roman calendar, Roman
legal and administrative
practices and the whole spectrum of education and cultural life are reflected
in at least seventy
loanwords in British. (Wild 1976: 59)
^
4.3 The Lexical Integration of Loanwords
Having previously demonstrated the complexity of the process of borrowing, it
is obvious that that
there are several ways of how a word can be adopted. There are words, which
having no equivalent in
the receiving languge can be adopted fairly easily. However, there are words
which have a very
similar or even the same meaning as domestic words and have to face eachother
in ‘linguistic
battles’. Weinreich comments on this issue by saying that except for loans
with entirely new
content, the transfer of reproduction of foreign words is bound to affect the
existing vocabulary
in one of the following three ways. First, there can be confusion in usage or
full identity of
content between the old and the new word. This is usually typical of the
early stages of language
contact. Second, old words may be discarded as their content becomes fully
replaced by the new
loanword which occurs both when foreign words are transferred and when they
are reproduced.
Finally, the third affect that lexical borrowing may have is a clarification
and specialization of
terms. The content of the clashing old and borrowed words may result in
specialization which may
lead to the creation of doublets. (Weinreich 1974: 53-5)

16. II. The History of the English and Latin Languages
The focus of this chapter is the connection between historical
events and the language
development in relation to the English and Latin languages. The description
of their individual
development is important for us to be able to understand the influence Latin
has had on the English
language. For this reason, a brief introduction to the history of both
languages is given the focus
being primary the linguistic influence that has shaped the two languages into
the form they are in
today and the chronological classification of both English and Latin
separately which is going to
be create a background for the next chapter in which the English-Latin
linguistic contact will be
dealt with.
1. The Latin Language
1.1 Chronological Classification of Latin
The Latin language is considered to have gone through several stages of
development. These patterns
of chronological classifications may vary. I am going to work with
Barandovská’s division that
distinguishes between seven periods in the development of Latin. Each of
these periods represents
the role that Latin played at that particular time.
LATIN TIME PERIOD
Archaic Latin
3^rd century B.C. – 1^st century
B.C.
Classical Latin 1. Golden period
2. Silver period
1^st century B.C. – 14 A.D.
14 A.D. – 117 A.D.
Vulgar Latin
1^st century B.C. – 8^th century
A.D.
Christian Latin
2^nd century – present

17. Middle Ages Latin
5^th century – 15^th century
Renaissance Latin
14^th century – 17^th century
Modern Latin
17^th century – present
Table 1 (Barandovská 1995: 18-51)
1.1.1 Archaic Latin
The beginnings of ancient Latin – its birth and early development – are still
very much covered in
darkness. The only thing that is certain is that Latin separated from the
Indo-European
protolanguage – it was not until the third century B.C. that this was first
documented. In the
historical period it was merely a dialect in the Rome surroundings and later
became the language of
the Latini i.e. people living in Latium. (Barandovská 1995: 18-9)
It is therefore obvious that Latin has not always held the position of a
prestigeous, predominant
language. Latin used to be merely one of a number of languages once found in
the area of today’s
Italy. As for the influences that shaped Latin – Latin adopted language
patterns and lexis not only
from Greek, but also from Etruscan. For instance, the Latin alphabet that was
later adopted by so
many languages, had been taken over from Etruscan. Also, architectonical
features, some proper
names and religious customs were taken over from the Etruscan civilization.
Even though Etruscan
was an important influence, the greatest influence on Latin was Ancient
Greek. Greek, being the
main source of Latin lexis, was a significant influence also on its
morphology and syntax. The
Greek influence on Roman literature, religion, arts, language and many other
fields is immense.
Naturally, we have to ask ourselves why it is that neither Etruscan nor
Ancient Greek surpassed
Latin in its use and spread. As for Etruscan, as Barandovská points out, the
languge was not of a
European character which was reflected in the fact that Latin has not adopted
that many words from
it compared to other languages. Greek lacked the potential to spread through
Europe due to its many
dialects which were rather scattered and separated. Rome, on the other hand
was an area of one
common language, whose spread was amplified by its growing political power
and the decision to
install Latin in all newly conquered areas. (Barandovská 1995: 18-9)
^
1.1.2 Classical and Vulgar Latin

18. It is quite natural with all languages that the written and the spoken form
of the language differ
to a certain extent. In the case of Latin, the two forms are particularly
different and the
inconsistencies between the spoken and the written language are sometimes
connected not only with
the ‘correct‘ and ‘incorrect‘ form but rather with the fact that Latin has
developed into two
separate languages.
The written form, which planted its roots in the classical period (1^st
century B.C. – 14 A.D.) and
is therefore called the classical Latin, has become a pattern in fields such
as philosophy, oratory
and poetry for many future generations and is usually the Latin taught at
classical schools. It is
noteworthy that it was this relatively short period of time that produced
great politicians,
writers and poet such as Cicero, Ovid, Vergil and Horatio. The model of
classical Latin was based
on the use of conscientiously chosen words, stylistic measures, optimal use
of word-formation
affixes, loanwords and their precise translation. However, it had a rather
elaborate and somewhat
artificial grammar suitable predominantly for literary purposes. As has been
mentioned before,
classical Latin is a very independent language pattern much more different
from its spoken form
that it is usual with contemporary languages. The existence of such a
‘correct‘ form not only
proves its high level of language but it also makes the process of grammar
creation much easier.
The spoken form of Latin is also known as vulgar Latin (vulgus = common
people). The records of the
existence of the written form simultaneously with the spoken form are not
numerous, but some can be
found in literature – for example in Plato’s and Petronius’s works. Also,
Christian writers tended
to accomodate the language of Christianity to the vulgar form as a way of
turning a greater number
of common people to their cause, therefore some evidence can be found in
their works as well. A
contemporary way of getting to know vulgar Latin are Romance languages. It is
often possible to
derive their original form from the phonetic changes that occured.
(Barandovská 1995: 24-28) To
give a few lexical examples of the differences between the two language forms
– in classical Latin
the word for horse was equus but the colloquial denomination was caballus.
From caballus the French
cheval, Provençal caval, Spanish caballo and Italian cavallo were derived.
(Baugh & Cable 1993:
27)^
1.1.3 Christian Latin
Even though, the original language of Christianity is Greek, Latin quickly
dethroned its
predecessor and in the second century became the liturgical language of Rome.
The Christian Latin
was divided into two branches – the classical Christian Latin and the vulgar
Christian Latin.

19. Therefore, Christian Latin had to function not only as the language of the
Church but also as a
language of the common people. Latin is still today considered one of the
specific characteristics
of the Catholic Church. In 1962, pope John XXIII. gave a speech called
Veterum sapientia in which
he fought for theologists’ active knowledge of the Latin language and he
suggested that a
theological programme taught in Latin should be established. Despite the fact
that later on, it was
established that liturgy may be held in national languages, Latin still
occupied the position of a
referential language in ecclestical law. However, Christian Latin has been
gradually replaced by
other languages such as Italian, Spanish, English, German and French.
(Barandovská 1995: 28-30)
1.1.4 Latin of the Middle Ages
Latin of Middle Ages is an umbrella terms for all three forms of Latin –
classical, vulgar and
Christian. Many monarchs, such as Charles the Great, or Otto I, attempted to
reform the declining
state of Latin during the Middle Ages. At that time, Latin did no longer hold
the place of a mother
tongue, rather an internation means of communication – this was the beginning
of Latin as an
international language as we know it to be today. However, not everybody
could speak it. The
education system, that was fully in hands of the church, gave the opportunity
to study Latin only
to scholars and common people were not given the chance to study it
respectively understand it any
more. A wide range of genres is very typical of Christian Latin – some of the
most typical include
poetry, legends, theater plays, proverbs, fables, moral songs etc.
(Barandovská 1995: 30-2)
1.1.5 Renaissance Latin
The Renaissance period was a time of the revival of ancient values and
traditions, which included
the rebirth and reintroduction of the Latin language. Renaissance authors
would find their
inspiration in ancient writers such as Cicero, Sallustius, Terentius or
Vergil and Latin, once
again, took the position of a language that marked high status and high level
of education. In
fact, at that time Latin was considered a requirement for studying at a
renowned foreign
university. However, the trend of keeping the knowledge only within scholarly
circles reassumed and
Latin continued to be an international language restricted to high class
societies. (Barandovská
1995: 32-3)
1.1.6 Modern Latin
After the Renaissance period, Latin held a strong position of the number one
language of science.

20. In the 20^th century many Latin university magazines such as Civis Romanus
(in Limbach), Scriptor
Latinus (in Frankfurt), Praeco Latinus (in Philadelphia) were being
published. New communities
supporting the revival of Latin were being established. For instance, in 1905
Unione pro Latinino
Internationale was established to promote and popularize Latin. It suggested
a simplified version
of the Latin grammar with maximal use of Latin lexis. Organizations such as
International Auxiliary
Language Association, that supported a creation of an international language,
defended Latin
enumerating all its good qualities comparing them to English linguistic
qualities. Also, many
congresses dealing with this topic were held. For instance, in 1966 there was
the Latinitas Viva
congress held in Rome. Five years later, another important effort to preserve
Latin occured -
Conventus Neo-Latini Lovaniensi in 1971. The famous Latin society Societas
Latina has also been
very active. Finally, even Latin games were held e.g. Ludi Latini (in
Augsburg, Friesing) and Ludi
Horatiani (in Munich). (Barandovská 1995: 37-46)
1.2 The Linguistic Influence of Latin
As Rome was colonizing Spain, Gaul, the district west of the Black Sea,
northern Africa, the
islands of the Mediterranean and Britain, Latin was spreading to all these
regions until its limits
became practically co-terminous with those of the Roman Empire. And in the
great part of this area
it has remained the language, although in an altered form, to the present
day. The Romance
languages, Italian, French, Spanish and Portuguese, in particular, owe a most
of their vocabulary
to Latin. In addition to these most spoken languages, there are about a dozen
Romance languages
that are spoken by smaller populations (such as Catalan on the Iberian
peninsula and Corsica, or
Rhaeto-Romanic in Switzerland or Walloon – a dialect of French spoken in
southern Belgium). (Baugh
& Cable 1993: 26-7)
Latin has left, directly or indirectly, its mark on most of the languages of
the world. It may
have been its grammar, syntax, alphabet or its lexis. In fact, Latin, even
though most people
consider it a dead language nowadays, has been a continuous source of
terminology and everyday
vocabulary since its very early beginnings. Its international character
allows people from
different parts of the world and different language groups make oneselves
understood in the field
of medicine, law, music, botany, astronomy, biology etc. and many more.
Furthemore, from personal experience, the linguistic value of Latin cannot be
compared to any other
language. If a person is acquainted with Latin grammar and Latin basic lexis,
the horizons that
this knowledge brings are immensely broad. Not only does the knowledge of
Latin make it easier to
learn a foreign language, it enriches a person in various other ways that are
better experienced

21. that described. Latin may be a dead language, but, in my opinion, it is the
most alive of all the
dead languages in the history of the world.
2. The English Language
2.1 Chronological Classification of English
The development of the English language is conventionally divided into three
time periods: Old,
Middle and Modern English. A further division into Early and Late stages of
development, as often
made, is too detailed to be considered here. For the purposes of this thesis,
the following
division will suffice. The following text is draws on Robertson’s
chronological classification,
which, based on my research, is also the most common one. It is as follows:
ENGLISH TIME PERIOD
Old English
449 – 1100
Middle English
1100 – 1500
Modern English
1500 – present
Table 2 (Robertson 1934: 39)
2.1.1 Old English
The Old English period, as the term is usually understood, starts in the
beginning of the Germanic
tribes’ (Jutes, Saxons and Angles) invasions to Britain in 449^ and goes
until the year 1100.
(Francis 1965: 39) After the Germanic conquest, each tribe settled a part of
the British Isles
which explains the division of Old English into dialects that have left their
trace in the
provincial speech of England until the present day. (Robertson 1934: 41)
To outline the general development of the language in this period requires us
to go back to
pre-Saxon Britain. When the Germanic invaders came, Britain had been
inhabited by the Celts. Celtic
Britain was invaded by the Romans in 55 B.C. and 54 B.C. by Julius Caesar’s
troops, but any attempt
to conquer the island was postponed for almost a century. The Roman
occupation lasted until the
early fifth century when the Romans began to withdraw from the provinces in
order to defend the
capital leaving Britain defenseless against the attacks of the Picts and
Scots of the north and
west. After appealing in vain to Rome for help, the Celts finally called in
the aid of Germanic
sea-rovers. The Germanic tribes who came to help eventually coveted the
island for themselves and
turned against their Celtic allies who were driven to the corners of the
island. (Robertson 1934:

22. 42)
There are three major language influences on Old English – Celtic, Danish and
Latin. The Latin
influence will be developed later on, in chapter four.
The Celtic influence and its deposit in Old English is curiously and
almost inexplicably
small. The words (apart from place-names) known to have been borrowed from
the Celts in the Old
English period do not amount to more than a dozen (e.g. bannock, brock,
crock, dun, slough). Names
of places stand on a different footing: hundreds of towns and cities (such as
Carlisle and Dundee)
retain their old Celtic names. One of the plausible ways of explaining the
small number of words
borrowed from Celtic is that the relation of the conquerors and the conquered
people made it
unnatural for the former to use the words of the latter. (Jespersen 1919: 37,
39, Robertson 1934:
43-4) Francis ascribes the scarce borrowing to the fact that the invading
English had little of the
kind of contact that would produce any extensive borrowing. He says that
instead, the Germanic
tribes often simply killed the Celts, or drove them into the mountains.
(Francis 1965: 135)^
Another foreign contact of that period was with the Danes. They began to
settle on the island in
the late eighth century and by the time of Alfred the Great, they commanded
all the territory north
of the Thames. The Scandianvians were on the whole at much the same stage of
civilization as the
English – especially at handicrafts such as arts of war and shipbuilding.
Undoubtedly, many very
familiar words have reached us in Scandinavian rather than through the
language of the Germanic
tribes: sister, for example, is from the Old Norse syster rather than the Old
English sweoster.
(Robertson 1934: 45-6) The Danes seem to have adopted English, but they
carried over into it many
words from their native Norse. Many of them, like sky, take, window, want and
even the pronouns
they, their, them and the preposition till have since become standard
English. (Francis 1965: 79,
Wardale 1937: 21-3) It is a small, but significant fact that in the glorious
patriotic war-poem
celebrating the battle of Maldon (993) we find for the first time one of the
most important
Scandinavian loanwords – to call. This shows how early the linguistic
influence of the Danes began
to be felt in the English language. An enormous number of words were then
identical in the two
languages, so that we should now have been utterly unable to tell which
language they had come
from, if we had had no English literature before the invasion – nous such as
man, wife, father,
mother, house, thing, life, winter, summer, verbs like will, can, meet, come,
bring, see, stand,
sit and adjectives and adverbs such as full, well, better, best with
prepositions such as over and
under. (Jespersen 1919: 61, 63-4)

23. The resemblance between Old English and German suggests perhaps the readiest
way to outline the
general characteristics of the former. Not only in its vocabulary, but also
in its accidence or
inflection does Old English present familiar conceptions to a person who has
studied German. Most
striking of all, perhaps, is the fact that while Modern English definite
article has a single
invariable form, the Old English article exhibits an elaborate set of
distinctions for gender,
number, and case that exactly parallel the German forms. (Robertson 1934: 47-
8)^
There are written records from this period, but very little literature was
written in English. With
the conservative forces of educated and literary usage in abeyance, the
language changed more
rapidly than it otherwise would have. By the time it again emerged as a
literary language, it was
so changed, that we give it a new name – Middle English.
2.1.2 Middle English
As we have seen, the Old English word-stock is virtually unilingual; the
Middle English, however,
is clearly bilingual. The French influence began before the Norman Conquest
when Edward the
Confessor gave many influential posts in the English Church and state to
French clergymen and
French nobles. Thus it is not surprising that French words begin to enter the
English vocabulary
even before 1066. The policy of William the Conqueror is believed by recent
historians to have been
far more liberal in its attitude toward the English language than was long
supposed. The king made
no attempt to force his new subjects in their relations with one another to
speak French. But it
was inevitable that French should become at once the language of law, the
Church, civil government
and of military organization. Most of English legal terminology is to be
traced directly to French:
suit, plead, judge, jury, cause, court, fee, crime, jail. Ecclesiastical
terms like religion,
trinity, sacrifice, pray, clergy, cloister and service are also from French.
So are terms of
national government like parliament, crown, state, council, country and
military words like
fortress, siege, peace, soldier, troops, force, guard, armor, battle and war.
Further followed by
words for art, music and literature such as art itself, paint, music, chant,
poem, and romance. As
a result, the English language was reduced from the status of a literary
language to that of a mere
spoken dialect. According to Bradley, there is just one class of object for
which the native names
have remained without any French mixture – that consisting of the external
parts of the body. Words
like eye, ear, tongue, nose, arm, hand and so forth are purely native. One
exception to this rule
is the word face which is French. (Bradley 1904: 91) However, it should be
remembered that the
addition of a French word does not necessarily mean the loss of an English
one. Frequently, the two

24. remain as synonyms. For instance, we have table as well as board, labor as
well as work. However,
as Jespersen says, the native English word usually has the strongest
associations with everything
that is primitive, fundamental, popular, while the French word is often more
formal, more polite,
more refined and has a less strong hold on the emotional side of life. Some
examples of these
synonyms may be the French amity and the English friendship, aid and help,
favourite and darling.
In some cases the chief difference between the native word and the French one
is that the former is
more colloquial and the latter more literary e.g. begin and commence, look
for and search for, hide
and conceal. Another English-French incosistency may be found in the
interesting custom of applying
Saxon names to animals when alive, but Norman French names when prepared for
food which has been
prevalent ever since this period and is illustrated in Ivanhoe. Thus, Saxon
swine, calf, ox, sheep
and deer have their counterparts in Norman pork, veal, beef, mutton and
venison. (Bradley 1904: 88,
Jespersen 1919: 84-90, 97-9, Robertson 1934: 51-5, Thoma 1922: 27, Wardale
1937: 35)^
Latin has been a rich source of borrowing in all periods of the English
languge, naturally
including the Middle English period. However, its influence, again, will be
discussed in detail in
the following chapter.
Generally speaking, the most important linguistic changes in this period are
the two following – a
more complex vocabulary which is accompanied by an increasingly simpler
inflectional system. Two
changes are perhaps most conspicuous: the far-reaching vowel weakening, by
which almost every vowel
other than e, occurring in an inflectional ending, was changed to e. By the
end of that period,
even that e has become mute to some extent as in Modern English, in which an
earlier dayes has
become days. The other change was the loss of final -n in the inflectional
forms of several parts
of speech. Greater simplicity was achieved also in the structure of the
Middle English sentence.
(Robertson 1934: 57-8, Wardale 1937: 3)
The fourteenth century not only saw English firmly and finally established as
a literary language
thanks to such figures as John Gower and writers such as Geoffrey Chaucer,
William Langland and the
unknown author of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight who staked all on English
and showed that it
could be the vehicle of great poetry) (Francis 1965: 82), but it saw the
elevation of one dialect
into a commanding position as a literary speech. The East Midland dialect of
the capital, the court
and the universities assumed a peculiarly favored position among its two
other rivals - Northern
and Southern dialects. The speech of London and the London area came to be
thought of as standard,
or at least preferred for cultivated use. Chaucer is sometimes given credit
for influencing this

25. choice since he was a Londoner born and bred and he wrote the colloquial and
educated speech of his
native town, but the truth may be rather different. Another person who
substantially contributed to
pushing English toward brighter future was Caxton and his invention of the
printing press. Its
ability to spread copies of English texts over the whole country made a
standard writing system in
English both desirable and feasible. The fifteenth century saw the
standardization of the literary
language carried even further and before the end of the fifteen century, it
has developed into what
we know now as Modern English. (Francis 1965: 83, 86, Robertson 1934: 61-3)
^
2.1.3 Modern English
In the sixteenth century the English society as well as its language were
overwhelmed by the
humanistic movement - the revival of learning that put the study of Latin on
a new basis and
introduced the study of Greek. The general effect of the revival of learning
in the context of the
English language was twofold: a temporary neglect of the vernacular but later
a recognition of the
possibility of giving modern languages something of the grace and quality
that scholars found in
the classics. This twofold division led to a division in society – there were
those who believed
that English should be “improved“ by borrowings from Latin and those who
believed that English
should rather develop its own words. These opposite attitudes, of course, do
not represent a new
notion, simply one amplified by the time period. (Robertson 1934: 65-6)
Throughout the eighteenth century, beginning with the work of men like Swift
and Steele, the
striving is for simplicity, directness, clarity and accurancy. The
Elizabethan exuberance, the joy
in language is no longer requested. There is a tendency towards purification
and refinement.
(Robertson 1934: 67-8)
With the dawn of Romanticism a freer and a more liberal atmosphere becomes
evident. Obsolete words
are being revived, dialectal terms are being introduced. Dictionaries begin
to have a powerful
influence upon Modern English development. (Robertson 1934: 68-9)
One of the most interesting aspects of Modern English is its constantly
increasing use as an
international language. This leadership among the languages of the world has
been achieved well
within the Modern English period. In the nineteenth century, English came
rapidly to the front,
largely as a result of the swift increase in the population of the United
States and of the British
colonies. Probably by the middle of the century, it had outdistanced its
competitors. The reason
why it had done so is up for discussion. Its spread may be accounted for by
external circumstances,
or it may have come about because English is the language best fitted to be
the international

26. tongue, that Latin once was. Probably it is best to say that both internal
and external factors
have worked hand in hand here. However, the analogy of the destiny of Latin
and English is quite
interesting and will be mentioned in the following passage. (Robertson 1934:
87-92)
^
3. The English-Latin Analogy
McArthur presents an interesting suggestion in his book The English
Languages. He compares the fate
of Latin to the possible destiny of English. He suggests that there are
scholars who fear that
Standard English might be slowly replaced by various dialects and possibly
lead to the death of
English as we know it. He then, compares this possible development to that of
Latin which was
replaced by other languages such as French, Italian and Spanish. Because of
this concern about
English, the Latin which died under barbarian assault 1,500 years ago offers
a suitable dire
analogue of mutally intelligible ‘post-English’ languages. McArthur also
present the opposite side
of the issue. He says that there are those who do not see English as one
language but rather as
many ‘world Englishes’. From this point of view, the growth of the vernacular
Latins of Imperial
Rome which led in due course to the Romance languages, is hardly tragic.
(McArthur 1998: 181-2)^
The truth might be somewhere in the middle. There is no way to know to what
extent the ‘death‘ of
Latin was abrupt or how natural the transfer from Latin to the Romance
languages was. Moreover,
changing of languages and creation of languages is a natural process that
cannot and should not be
artificially interrupted. On the other hand, the tendencies toward very
different variations of
English have become quite numerous recently and we can expect such a trend to
continue further in
the future.
III. Latin Loanwords in English
Having introduced both languages in the context of their own history and
development that was
marked by various influences, it is now time to present the two languages in
the context of their
common history. This chapter has been divided into three parts that
correspond with the periods of
the linguistic development of English, that is the Old, Middle and Modern
English periods. Each
part deals with one particular period of the English-Latin contact focusing
primarily on the role
that the historical development played in the linguistic development. A
characterization of the
loanwords of the given period is provided and examples of those loanwords
that were adopted into
English at that particular period are given.
The principal languages which have affected the English lexis are
Scandinavian, French and Latin.

27. Scandinavian words were borrowed most freely between the ninth and the
twelfth century; French
words during the twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenth centuries, but Latin
words have been making
their way into English throughout almost the whole period of English history,
first into the spoken
language, later into written English. (Serjeantson 1961: 9)
1. Latin Loanwords in the Old English Period (449-1100)
There are numerous ways of dividing the early loan-words period. Skeat’s
model defines Latin of the
first period as Latin that was present on the British Isles until 600 A.D.
After this point, Latin
of the Second period comes – the Christian Latin. (Skeat 1887: 432-3)^ Baugh
and Cable devide the
history of early Latin loanwords in English into three periods: the Zero
period, the First period
and the Second period. (Baugh & Cable 1993: 77-82) ^ A different
classification was introduced by
Alois Pogatscher in his work Lautlehre in 1888, where he included a
geographical aspect of division
of the early Latin loanwords. (Wollmann 2007: 6) According to his pattern,
the early OE loanwords
can be divided into two main groups: continental and insular. Later on, he
added the period of
Christian loanwords. The continental loanwords, originating in the lower
Rhine area and mainly in
Gaul were those words borrowed by the Germanic tribes from the beginning of
the Roman-Germanic
contact to 449 A.D. Insular loanwords were words borrowed from the romanized
urban British
population between the years 450 and 600 A.D. Christian loanwords are those
words that were
borrowed roughly after the year 600 A.D. (Wollmann 2007: 6) Pogatscher’s
geographical division into
continental and insular loanwords was later adopted by many scholars,
(including linguists such as
Hladký (Hladký 2003: 319-21)^ and Serjeantson (Serjeantson 1961: 11-4)^ and
became the basic
pattern of division of early Latin loanwords in English. This work is going
follow Pogatscher in
his division into continental, insular and Christian loanwords.
1.1 Continental Development
The history of Latin words in English has its beginnings in the period
before the Angles,
Jutes and Saxons crossed the North Sea to settle the British Isles. From the
time of Julius Caesar
onwards we have evidence from the Roman historians of contact betwen the
Germanic and the Latin
peoples which led to the adoption of Germanic words into Latin and vice
versa. The number of
Germans living within the Roman empire in the fourth century is estimated at
several million.
Germans usually worked as slaves in the fields or served in the army as
soldiers and also as
commanders. For instance, Augusta Treverorum in Gaul (now Treves) – an
important intersection of
eight military roads and a place where all the grandeur of the Roman
civilization was shown was
practically under the gaze of the Germanic people.

28. As has been indicated before, the first spread of Latin words into Germanic
was due to military
influence. And after the Roman soldier came the Roman merchant. From the time
of the first
establishment by Julius Caesar of an imperial province on the Rhine, the
trade of Italy turned in
this direction and the inhabitants of the new province learnt very quickly to
approve the new
products, vessels, plants, ornaments and games which came to them from the
south. They traded
products of Roman handicrafts and articles of luxury for amber, furs, slaves
and raw materials. The
new words that some of the Germans learned from the Romans then spread to
other Germanic tribes. In
the beginning, the interchange of words between Germanic and Latin speakers
took place in the
spoken language i.e. it was not classical Latin but rather vulgar Latin that
was the source of new
lexis. (Hladký 2003: 319, Serjeantson 1961: 11)
1.1.1 Continental Loanwords
Although, as Hladký states, the number of loanwords from this period is not
very high – about 150,
they are all very important words. (Hladký 2003: 320) The loanwords adopted
in the continental
period are very concrete and descriptive. Mainly because there was no need
for any abstract terms
and as Peprník points out, the Germanic tribes were not yet mature enough to
absorb any abstract
terms. (Peprník 2006: 81) A few examples from various fields follow (Hladký
2003: 320):
Military actions: battle, javelin, road, wall
Measure and distance: inch, mile, pound
Trade: bargain, chest, payment, price,
market, mint sack,
monger, toll
Food and drink: butter, cheese, oil, wine
Cooking: dish, kitchen, kettle, mill
Plants: beet, cherry, cole, lily, mint, palm, pear,
pepper, plum
Animals: dragon, drake, mule, peacock
Building arts: chalk, copper, pitch, pit, tile
Education: school
Church and religion: angel, ark, bishop, church, church,
devil
Finally, it should be noted that there was two-way traffic in loanwords in
the Roman period.

29. However, Germanic loanwords adopted into Latin are suprisingly very scarce,
as attested by Roman
authors. Examples of such loanwords are ganta (goose), sapo (soap), reno
(hides) and glaesum
(amber). (Wild 1976: 61)^ These loanwords reveal the reverse side of Roman
trade with Germanic
tribes confirming Wild’s theory of the introduction of a new word that had
been preceded by the
introduction of the item itself.
1.2 Insular Development
1.2.1 Insular Development after the Roman Conquest
The first significant influence of Roman civilization on British Isles took
place in years 55 and
54 B.C. when Julius Caesar having completed the conquest of Gaul decided upon
an invasion of
England. His chief purpose behind the invasion was probably the intention to
discourage the Celts
of Britain from coming to the assistance of Celts in Gaul. However, the
expedition had resulted in
no material gain and great disappointment. The resistance of the Celts was
unexpectedly spirited.
His return the following year was no greater an improvement on the situation.
Even though he
succeeded in establishing himself in the southeast, after a few encounters
with the Celts, he was
forced to return to Gaul. Britain was not again troubled by the Roman for
nearly a hundred years.
(Baugh & Cable 1993: 43)
When emperor Claudius decided to undertake the actual conquest of the island
in 43 A.D. he did not
underestimate the problems involved with it. An army of 40, 000 was sent to
Britain and within
three years Claudius managed to subjugate the peoples of the central and
southeastern regions.
Subsequent campaigns soon brought almost all of what is now England under
Roman rule. A setback in
Roman progress occured in 61 A.D. when Boadicea, the widow of one of the
Celtic chiefs, led an
uprising against the Romans massacring about 70, 000 of them. The Romans
never really penetrated
far into the mountains of Wales and Scotland. Eventually, they built
Hadrian’s wall to protect the
northern boundary against the Scots. The area south of this line was under
Roman rule for more than
300 years. (Baugh & Cable 1993: 44)
The British Isles have been marked by the Roman rule in various ways. Roman
ways were found where
Romans lived and ruled. Four great highways spread fanlike from London to the
north, the northwest,
the west and the southwest. Numerous smaller roads connected important
military and civil centers.
Small cities and more than a hundred towns with their Roman houses, baths,
temples and occasional
theaters testify to the introduction of Roman habits of life. The Romans
introduced the heating

30. apparatus, the water supply system, paved floors in mosaic, walls of painted
stucco and other Roman
ornaments, utensils, pottery and glassware. (Baugh & Cable 1993: 44)
Naturally, the position of Latin, right after the conquest, was the position
of a conquering
language. However, the primary feeling of hostility toward the Roman language
began to change very
early. Tacitus tells us that in the time of Agricola (78-85 A.D.) the Britons
who at first despised
the language of their conquerors now became eager to speak it. On the whole,
many people in Roman
Britain habitually spoke Latin, but its use was not sufficiently widespread
to cause it to survive,
as the Celtic language survived, the upheaval of the Germanic invasions. A
number of inscriptions
have been found, all of them in Latin. These inscriptions do not in
themselves indicate a
widespread use of Latin by the native population. They rather suggest that
the use of Latin was
probably confined to members of the upper class and inhabitants of the cities
and towns. The
well-to-do inhabitants who occupied fine country houses probably spoke Latin,
too. (Baugh & Cable
1993: 44)^
1.2.2 Insular Development after the Germanic Conquest
When the Roman troops that had settled in Britain were called back
home to protect Rome,
they left Britain unprotected. The English, constantly harrased by the Picts
and Scots were
defenseless against these attacks and according to the tradition, invited the
Germanic tribes for
the purpose of conquering the Picts and Scots. However, when these tribes
arrived and fulfilled
their goal, they decided to establish kingdoms of their own. The Jutes
settled in southeastern
England, the Saxons settled largely south of the Thames and the Angles
established their kingdoms
in the east and central part of England from the Thames to Scotland. By the
middle of the sixth
century, the invasion had stopped. The Teutonic supremacy on the island
naturally resulted in the
suppression of the native Celts. The Germanic tribes were not wildly
barbarous as the presuming
opinion usually is. They were adventurous sea-rovers with high regard for
freedom. However, their
type of civilization cannot be compared to that of the Romans, whose culture
they swept out of
England. In the light of Roman civilization the Teutonic tribes were,
therefore, fierce and
warlike. (Thoma 1922: 25-6)
Nevertheless, the Germanic tribes thought of Latin as of a language of a
highly regarded
civilization, one from which they wanted to learn. Contact with that
civilization, at first
commercial and military, later religious and intellectual, extended over many
centuries and was
constantly renewed. (Baugh & Cable 1993: 75)^
1.2.3 Insular Loanwords

31. When the Germanic tribes invaded Britain in the half of the fifth century and
conquered the Celtic
inhabitants, the Latin language had already preceded them. As I have
mentioned before, Britain had
been a Roman province for nearly four hundred years. (Skeat 1887: 432)
However, we must not expect
too many Latin words from this source. The words most likely to be
incorporated into English are
place-names left by the Romans among the Celts. As Wollmann stresses, there
are no loanwords that
can for sure be assigned to the insular period in the sense that there is a
positive proof that
they were borrowed from romanized Celts or some dispersed speakers of British
vulgar Latin. Since
possible Celtic interference can be probably restricted only to a few cases,
we are obliged to
state, that a majority of early Latin loanwords were of continental origin
since there is no
linguistic proof that loanwords were borrowed in Britain and not by way of
trade with Gaul.
(Wollmann 2007: 21) Serjeantson agrees with this statement and points out
that it is sometimes
impossible to distinguish between loans of the later continental period and
those of the first
centuries of the settlement and in some cases, though these are in a
minority, words included in
the respective lists might be transferred from one to the other with equal
probability of
correctness. (Serjeantson 1961: 14) Moreover, each author deals with the
issue of Latin loanwords
differently, which may result in words being classified as continental as
well as insular
borrowings. The following words, as Emerson presents them in his work, are
some of the examples
that Kluge and Skeat consider to be insular borrowings (Emerson 1917: 145-6,
Skeat 1887: 432-3):
LATIN OLD ENGLISH
MODERN ENGLISH
castra (pl.)
ċeaster
Chester, Lancaster,
lacus
lacu
lake
montem (akuz.)
munt
mount
portus
port

32. port
milia (pl.)
mil
mile
strāta (sternere)
strǣt
street
uallum
wal
wall
vīcus
wīc
Wick (Harwich,
Berwick)
vīnum
wīn
wine
Table 3 (Emerson 1917: 145-6, Skeat 1887: 432-3)
^
1.3 Christian Influence and Loanwords
The third period of the Latin influence on Old English, according to
Potgatscher, is the period of
christianization. The English were converted to Christianity in about 596
A.D. It was in that year
that Pope Gregory the Great sent Abbot Augustine to England to spread
Christianity. Augustine
converted the king of Kent and founded the monastery at Canterbury.
Furthermore, Scottish
missionaries founded Lindisfarne in Northumbria in about 640 A.D. However, it
must be noted that
the Anglo-Saxons knew about some phenomema of Christianity centuries before
they were converted.
This is proved by the fact that they learned a few words from the Christian
terminology before
coming to England e.g. bishop, church, devil, angel (see 1.1.1 Continental
loanwords) (Skeat 1887:
433) But, as Thoma points out, some of these words of classical origin
existing previous to the
introduction of Christianity were used with pagan connotation. For instance,
an angel was not a
heavenly messenger but a messenger in our sense of the word. (Thoma 1922:
26)^ During the following
four centuries many Latin words were introduced by Roman ecclesiastics, and
by English writers who

33. translated Latin words into their own language. (Skeat 1887: 433)
Jespersen presents an interesting idea when he says that he is not concerned
with the words that
were adopted at this period, but with those that were not. He does not find
it unusual, considering
the historical development, that English borrowed from Latin its religious
terminology. What
astonishes him is the fact that English has utilized its own resources to
such a great extent. The
use of native words was also supported by the clergy and missionaries who
tended to avoid learned
Latin words to make the new faith more accessible to the population. This was
done in three ways:
by forming new words from the foreign loans by means of native affixes, by
modifying the sense of
existing English words, and finally by framing new words from native stems.
(Jespersen 1919: 42)^
A great example of how existing native words were largely turned
to account to express
Christian ideas is the word God. Jespersen gives 23 native compounds that
include the word God.
These are just some of them: godcundnes (divinity), godsibb (sponsor),
godspell (gospel), godsunu
(godson), godgimm (divine gem). (Jespersen 1919: 45) Such a list shows how in
the old system of
nomenclature, everything was native, and, therefore, easily understood even
by the uneducated.
Modern English, however, has words derived from several bases instead:
divine, religious, sacred,
pious, evangelical, oracle etc. Such series of terms is, naturally, harder to
remember that the
Anglo-Saxon series beginning with god-. (This is the usual argument that
those against loanwords
and borrowing give.) (Jespersen 1919: 45-6, Peprník 2006: 82)
As Baugh and Cable say, the result of the christianizing of Britain is some
450 Latin words adopted
into English (this number does not include proper names or derivatives).
However, about 100 of them
were purely ‘learned’ or retained so much of the foreign character and hardly
can be considered
part of the English vocabulary (e.g. inwit (conscience), houseling
(confession)). (Francis 1965:
136) Of the 350 words, some did not find their way into general use until
later, when they were
reintroduced. On the other hand, a large number of them were fully accepted
and thoroughly
incorporated into the language since they were introduced (e.g. deacon,
bishop, martyr) (Baugh &
Cable 1993: 89, Francis 1965: 136)
A list of a few examples of words adopted in the period of Christian
influence follows (Baugh
& Cable 1993: 84-5, Emerson 1917: 147, Hladký 2003: 321, Skeat 1887: 441):
Religion and church: abbot, alb, alms, altar,
anthem, apostle, balsam,
candle, canon, cleric, creed, cummin, deacon, disciple, font, litany, manna,
martyr, mass, minster,
monk, noon, nun, offer, organ, pall, pasch, pope, priest, prime, provost,
psalm, sabath, shrine,

34. temple
Household and clothing: candle, cap, cowl, purple,
silk, sock, sponge
Plants, herbs, trees: box (tree), cedar,
chervil, feverfew, gladden,
mallow, myrth, periwinkle, pine, plant, rose, rue, savine, spelt
Food: fennel, ginger,
lentil, lobster, mussel,
radish
Animals: capon, culver, doe,
phoenix, trout,
turtle-(dove)
Miscellaneous: canker, chapman, circle,
coop, copper, coulter,
crisp, cup, dight, elephant, fan, fever, fiddle, fork, giant, imp, keep,
kiln, lever, linen, mat,
mortar, must, pan, paper, phoenix, pilch, pile, pillow, pin, place, plaster,
pole, punt, sack,
shambles, shoal, shrive, sickle, sole, spend, stop, strap, talent, tippet,
title, tun, tunic,
verse, zephyr
2. Latin Loanwords in the Middle English Period (1100-1500)
2.1 English, Latin and French
After 1066, when the Normans, led by William the Conqueror, settled in
Britain, English and Latin
found themselves having to compete with yet another language, French. The
roles of the three
languages were given by the official policy of the court. The king’s court,
along with major
religious communities were sources of the French influence. The kings and the
feudal lords were all
French-speakers. All legal documents were written in French. Monastic life
was also dominated by
French-speakers, although the language of the liturgy and of the written
documents was Latin. Latin
had played an important role as the official written language in England.
Part of the literature of
medieval England from the twelfth century to the fourteenth was written in
Latin. During Middle
English, the importance of Latin as the language of religion and learning
continued. Chronicles
were written in Latin, and the number of ‘learned words’ in history and
theology further kept
rising. English was the language of ordinary trade and agriculture. The
balance between these two
languages was upset in 1204 when King John lost Normandy to Philip II of
France, and isolated the
Normans from their continental lands. This was an encouragement for the
aristocracy to use English.
This was also something that caused the Latin loans to appear in large
numbers in Middle English.
In 1362, Edward III issued an act requiring the use of English as the
language of the oral

35. proceedings in courts. The written records, however, were still made in
Latin. (Berndt 1989: 53,
Hladký 2003: 324)^
2.2 Loanwords
An important difference between Old English loanwords and Middle English
loanwords is the purpose
of their borrowing. In Old English, borrowing was motivated mainly by the
need for denotation of
new concepts while in Middle English, in many cases, Latin words were taken
over even though there
were adequate native words already in the English lexis. (Hladký 2003: 319)
The area of Middle English loanwords from Latin widens quite considerably
with the adoption of new
words from scientific fields. The borrowing of religious and ecclesiastical
terms continues in this
period. However, there are new semantical fields such as medicine, alchemy,
mineralogy, zoology
that are being enriched with Latin words. Middle English period is also
considerably richer in
abstract terms, as opposed to the Old English period.
A few examples of loanwords from various fields follow
(Serjeantson 1961: 260):
Religion: alleluia, apocalypse, collect,
diocese, eremite,
Exodus, Genesis, gloria, lateran, lector, magnificat, mediator, requiem,
redemptor, sabbat,
salvator, sanctum
Law: arbitrator, client, conviction,
equivalent, executor,
exorbitant, extravagant, gratis, habeas corpus, implement, legitimate,
memorandum, pauper,
persecutor
Education: abacus, abecedary, allegory, et
cetera, cause,
contradictory, desk, ergo, explicit, finis, formal, incipit, index, item,
library, memento, major,
minor, neuter, scribe, simile
Medicine: diaphragm, digit, dislocate,
hepatic, ligament, recipe,
saliva
Alchemy: aggravate, calcine, concrete,
dissolve, distillation,
elixir, essence, ether, fermentation, fixation, immaterial, liquable, mercury
Astronomy: ascension, comet, conspect, dial,
eccentric, equal,
equinoxium, equator, intercept, retrograde
Botany: cardamon, gladiol, juniper, lupin
Zoology: asp, cicade, lacert, locust
Mineralogy: adamant, chalcedony, jacinct,
lapidary, onyx

36. Abstract terms: adoption, aggregate, alienate,
collision, colony,
communicative, complete, concussion, conductor, confederate, conflict,
depression, determinate,
exclamation, expedition, imaginary, immortal, implication etc.
Latin is also responsible for the adoption of a number of prefixes and
suffixes into English. A
list of prefixes is given at the end of this work.
Latin nouns, adjectives and pronouns have usually been adopted in the
nominative case (circus,
consul) but inflected forms are occasionally found, too (folio, requiem). To
these we may add
various Latin verbal forms which have become crystallized in the same way
through some frequent
construction and are now used as nouns (exit, veto, deficit, interest). Latin
prepositions and
adverbs were adopted directly less commonly than nouns, adjectives and verbs,
but some do occur in
English (alias, extra, item, verbatim). (Serjeantson 1961: 263-4)
Serjeantson points out that, in this period, it is quite difficult
to know which language
a word was adopted from. For example, the words exemption, impression or
discipline could have been
taken over either directly from Latin or later on from French. Another
problem is that, often, a
word which was adopted from Old French, is either in Middle English or later,
reborrowed from Latin
or at least refashioned on the model of Latin (in pronunciation, spelling or
both). These include
words such as adventure (earlier aventure), confirm (conferm), debt (dette).
The matter is further
complicated by the fact that in the adoption of words from Latin the common
Latin suffixes are
replaced with common French suffixes. For instance, the OFr. suffix -ie
represents the Latin suffix
-ia, hence the Latin words custodia, familia were modified into custodie,
familie (now custody,
family) Sometimes, however, the French form has deviated so far from the
Latin form, that there is
no doubt which language is the source of the corresponding English word. In
fact, English has often
two terms – doublets – one adopted directly from Latin and one adopted
directly from French.
(Serjeantson 1961: 261-2)
2.3 Aureate Terms
The fifteenth century introduced a rather unusual linguistic
feature – aureate terms.
It became a conscious stylistic device extensively used by poets and
occasionally by writers of
prose. By means of words such as abusion, dispone, diurne, equipolent and
tenebrous, poets
attempted what has been described as a kind of stylistic gilding, and this
feature of their
language is accordingly known as ‘aureate diction’. The poets who affected
aureate terms have been

37. described as tearing up words from Latin. Even though, this effort was rather
artificial and most
of the words created in this way disappeared from the English language quite
early, there were
words which were considered ‘aureate’ in Chaucer, like laureate, mediation,
oriental and prolixity
and did become part of the common speech. However, this source of words is
merely a small stream of
Latin words flowing into English in the period of Middle Ages. (Francis 1965:
181-2)
3. Latin Loanwords in the Modern English Period (1500 – present)
The period of Modern English stretches from 1500 until the present day. And
even though the
beginnings of Renaissance are usually considered to be in the 14th century,
its direct impact on
English was the greatest in the 16th and 17th century; therefore, the period
of Renaissance has
been included in the Modern English period rather than in the Middle English.
Moreover, Francis
points out that the influx of classical borrowings that entered English in
Renaissance was a
phenomenon of the period roughly from 1550 to 1675. Direct borrowing from
Latin during the
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries far surpassed that from any other foreign
language, including
French. The following eighteenth century was a period of stabilization of the
vocabulary crowned by
the publication of Johnson’s great dictionary in 1755. (Francis 1965: 110)
The Renaissance movement brought about the revival of not only classical
literature and art but
also of the classical languages. Compared to the Middle English period, when
on the whole many of
the borrowings adopted from Latin into English are much more likely to be
from French than from
Latin, in the Modern English period, they are much more likely to be from
Latin than from French.
(Robertson 1934: 314) Although, it is probably quite impossible to get
anything like an accurate
estimate of the whole number of Latin loanwords borrowed in English,
Professors Greenough and
Kittredge have arrived at the conclusion that English “has appropriated a
full quarter of the Latin
vocabulary, besides what it has gained by transferring Latin meanings to
native words.“ (Robertson
1934: 315)
3.1 Characteristics of Loanwords
Along with the scientific development, in the Modern English period, Latin
became the languge of
science (medicine, anatomy, pathology, botany, astronomy, physics,
mathematics, philosophy etc.)
therefore these are the fields which were supplied with Latin words the most.
Other Latin
borrowings are broadly assignable to such fields as education, rhetoric,
prosody, literature etc.
Among the large number of Latin loans difficult to classify are words which
are of a rather formal

38. style as well as others which have found their ways to the everyday speech of
the average educated
man (Berndt 1989: 56) Latin also served as the channel through which most of
the loans from Greek
passed into English. The process of borrowing abstract terms rather than
concrete words also
continues in the Modern English period. This suggests the social progress
that started in the
Middle English period which is demonstrated through language.
An interesting course of development occured during this period. Since the
prestige of Latin was so
great, many French words were being adapted back to their Latin originals:
such as avril – april,
doute – doubt, egal – equal, langage – language. (Berndt 1989: 56)
3.1.1 The Englishing of Latin Words
Apart from the assimilation of prefixes and suffixes that has been mentioned
before, English has
managed to modify Latin words in other ways. For instance, Wrenn mentiones
that Latin technical
terms and law phrases were commonly shortened or abbreviated. Such as status
quo which was taken
originaly from ‘status quo ante’ or bona fide (as in ‘bona fide traveller’)
or mob (as in ‘mobile
vulgus’). Indeed many Latin words have acquired such an English feeling that
almost no-one knows
what their origins are. Thus, we have recipe in cookery which originally was
the Latin imperative
in the sense of take (take that amount of ingredience) similarly the word
item is properly the
Latin for ‘likewise’ used in such lists as accounts, prescriptions or
recipes. (Wrenn 1949: 114-6)
Substantial changes also occured in the field of pronunciation. Latin, as the
language of the
educated classes in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries developed in
pronunciation on the same
lines as English, therefore common Latin terms came to have a real speech-tradition
among the
cultivated classes. However, in the nineteenth century a new way of
pronouncing Latin brought over
from the Continent arose in schools. The spreading of this new and foreign-sounding
pronunciation
has grown with the decline of general knowledge of Latin which led to changes
in pronunciation.
Wrenn gives examples of this – the traditional stratum [streitəm] becomes
[stratəm], and one even
hears occasionally cinema [sinima] spoken as [kinima] or [kainima] because
the word was made from a
Greek formation kinēma. Wrenn adds, that often rhymes in English verse
depending on the traditional
English-Latin pronunciation are falsified by this practice. (Wrenn 1949: 117-
8)
^
3.2 Loanwords
As Serjeantson says, the period of Renaissance added very many Latin words to
the English
vocabulary but it also introduced many which failed to receive general
approval. Serjeantson agrees

39. with Francis on the period of the greatest influx of Latin loanwords by
saying that since 1500, the
largest number of words have been introduced during the second half of the
sixteenth century and
the first half of the seventeenth while the smallest number during the last
half of the eighteenth
century. (Serjeantson 1961: 264)^.
3.3 The Latin-English Controversy
The revival of Latin in the sixteenth century was viewed twofold. On one
hand, Latin was taken as a
highly regarded language, a rich source of vocabulary and a linguistic
universal currency. On the
other hand, Latin was viewed as a threat to the emerging vernaculars. As
Baugh and Cable say, in
the Renaissance period, vernaculars had to face three great problems (Baugh &
Cable 1993: 198):
1. Recognition in the fields where Latin had for centuries been supreme.
2. The establishement of a more uniform orthography.
3. Enrichment of the vocabulary so that it would be adequate to meet the
demand that would be
made upon it in its wider use.
Having said that, Latin was one of the possible sources of troubles that
vernaculars had to deal
with. At that time, many scholars argued that compared to Latin, the
vernacular languages seemed
immature, unpolished, and limited in resource. (Berndt 1989: 55) English also
came under attack in
the sixteenth century by various writers who called the language uneloquent
in such terms as base,
simple, rude, gross, barbarous and vile. For this reason, it was thought that
serious compositions
about theology, medicine, philosophy, law etc. should be written in Latin.
(Peters 1968: 269)
The early modern period was, on the other hand also the time when, as a
result of socioeconomic
changes, the monopoly of Latin as the universal languagege of philosophy,
theology, and science was
being challenged, and English came to be employed more and more for purposes
for which Latin had
for centuries either exclusively or predominantly been used. There were many
scholars who defended
English against Latin such as Elyot, Wilson, Puttenham, or Mulcaster. (This
issue is also referred
to in chapter 3.5.)
In conclusion, I think it is safe to say that the scholars who at that time
were in favor of
borrowing from Latin still outnumbered those who were against it and that is
why the word-stock of
Latin loanwords in the Modern English period is the largest of all three
periods in the history of
the English language.

40. IV. Chronological Classification of Loanwords
The core of this thesis is the following chronological classification of
Latin words in the English
language. However, a few words need to be said to explain the focus of the
text that follows.
First, the following enumeration of words is based on one major source that
was used, that is
Hoad’s Oxford Concise Dictionary of English Etymology (A). Other sources were
consulted, when the
origin of words was not clear, especially when a word was said to be of
either French or Latin
origin. In that case, two more sources were consulted, that is Skeat’s
Concise Dictionary of
English Etymology (B) and Onions’s The Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology
(C). The letters in
the brackets – that is A, B, and C – were used to state which of the three
book sources the origin
of the word was taken from. That is, if a headword is followed by A152, it
means that the origin of
the word can be found in Hoad’s Dictionary on page 152. If a word was said to
be adopted either
from Latin or French in Hoad’s work whereas Skeat claims that its origin is
Latin, the word is
included in the list and both sources are stated.
Second, for practical reasons, the number of words is limited to the
headwords of Hoad’s
dictionary. Therefore, derivatives and related words are not included in the
classification.
However, all headwords that are stated to be clearly of Latin origin have
been written down, along
with their various meanings. The development of meaning is always reflected
in the chronological
classification, i.e. one word may be included in several centuries as it was
adopted several times
with different meanings or the meaning has changed throughout history. Not
all headwords are
provided with a definition of meaning. Definitions have not been provided for
words whose senses
have undergone no major change in English, and whose meanings are likely to
be ascertainable by
most readers.
Third, the headword (with its English definition) is always followed by its
origin. Words from
other languages that are part of the trail of etymological history of the
English headword are
written in italics. The first word given is always Latin, if not stated
otherwise. If the word had
been adopted into Latin from some other language before it was adopted from
Latin into English, the
chain of origin is also given. The following signs were used in explaining
the course of the
adoption of words:
– adoption, borrowing from one language into another
f. formed on, a word was formed on another word
= means, meaning

41. Further abbreviations that were used are listed at the end of this chapter
along with a list of the
most common prefixes that occur in English (with stress on Latin prefixes). A
list of suffixes is
not included due to its complexity that transcends the limits of this thesis.
The words are divided according to the century they were adopted in. However,
the earliest
loanwords usually cannot be assigned to a particular century. For this
reason, words that were
adopted approximately from 700 to 1100 are simply included in one group of
loans – Old English
Loanwords. This applies also to several Middle English loanwords whose
precise date of adoption is
not known, and which are therefore put in another group of loans – Middle
English Loanwords.
Following these two groups, there are 10 groups of words listed according to
the century they were
adopted in – from the 11th century until the 20th century. A list of words
that entered English via
Latin whose time of adoption, however, is not given by any of the consulted
dictionaries, concludes
the enumeration of Latin loanwords in English. The final part of this chapter
explains why the
highest number of loanwords were adopted in the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries and why other
periods were less rich in Latin loans.
1. Old English Loanwords
Albion
A10
Britain
OE. Albion – L. Albiōn, Gr. Alouíōn – Celtic Albio, -on- (albus = white)
altar
A12

42. OE. altar, alter – L. altar, altāre, altārium for altāria, n. pl. burnt
offerings, altar, prob.
rel. to adolēre = burn in sacrifice
ampulla
A14
vessel for holy oil
OE. – L. dim. of ampora, var. of amphora
anchor
A15
appliance for mooring vessel to the bottom
OE. ancor, -er, ancra – L. anc(h)ora – Gr. ágkūra
anthem
A18
OE. antef(e)n – L. antiphona for antiphōna = antiphon
apostle
A19
OE. apostol – L. apostolus – Gr. apóstolos = one sent forth, f. apostéllein,
f. apo- + stéllein =
place, make ready
August
A28
eight month of the year
OE. – L. Augustus, f. base of augēre = increase; so named after the first
Roman emperor, Augustus
Caesar
Beelzebub
A37
the Devil

43. OE. Belzebub - L. Beelzebub, rendering Heb. = lord of flies and Gr.
Beelzeboúb of the N.T.
British
A50
pert. to ancient Britons
OE. Brettisċ, Brit-, Bryt-, f. Bret, pl. Brettas, based on L. Brittō (or
OCelt. Britto or Brittos)
butter
A56
OE. butere – L. būtȳrum – Gr. boútūron
caltrop
A59
(usu. pl.) name of various plants that entangle the feet
OE. calcatrippe – L. calcatrippa
candle
A60
OE. candel – L. candēla, -della, f. candēre = glisten
canon
A61
rule, law (of the Church)
OE. canon – L. canōn – Gr. kanón = rule
cap
A61
OE. cæppe – L. cappa, poss. f. caput = head
cheese
A72
food made of pressed curds

44. OE. ċēse, ċīese, ċȳse – L. cāseus
chervil
A73
garden herb
OE. ċerfille, -felle – L. chærephylla, -um – Gr. khairéphullon
chest
A73
box, coffer
OE. ċest, ċist – L. cista – Gr. kístē = box, chest
cockle
A82
plant growing among corn
OE. coccul, -el – L. cocculus, f. coccus, earlier coccum = kermes – Gr.
kókkos
cook
A96
preparer of food
OE. cōc – L. cōcus, for coquus
copper
A97
metal of reddish colour
copor, coper – L. cuprum, for cyprium (æs) = (metal) of Cyprus; so named from
its most noted
ancient source
coulter
A100
OE. culter – L. culter = knife, plough-share
cowl
A101

45. hooded garment worn by religious
OE. cug(e)le, cūle – L. cuculla, f. cucullus = hood of a cloak
creed
A104
OE. crēda – L. crēdō = I believe
crisp
A105
curly
OE. crisp, crips – L. crispus = curled
cup
A108
OE. cuppe – L. cuppa, var. of cūpa = tub
deacon
A113
OE. diacon – diāconus – Gr. diákonos = servant, messenger, Christian minister
devil
A122, B122
the supreme spirit of evil; malignant being
OE dēofol – L. diabolus – Gr. diábolos = prop. accuser, slanderer, f.
diabállein = slander,
traduce, f. diá = across + bállein = throw
disciple
A127
OE. discipul – L. discipulus = learner, f. discere = learn
et cetera
A156

46. OE. – L., et = and, cētera = the rest, n. pl. of cēterus = remaining over
false
A165
wrong; untrue, deceitful; spurious
OE. fals adj. in false ġewihta = wrong weights, falspening = counterfeit
penny – L. falsus adj. and
falsum n. sb., prop. pp. of fallere = deceive
fan
A165
instrument for winnowing grain
OE. fann – L. vannus
fennel
A169
OE. finugl, finule fem., fenol, finul m. – L. fēnuclum, -oclum of fæniculum,
dim. of fænum = hay
fever
A170
OE. fēfor m. – L. febris fem., of obscure orig.
feverfew
A170
OE. feferfuge – L. febrifuga, -fugia, f. febris = fever + fugāre = drive away
fiddle
A170
stringed musical instrument played with a bow
OE. fiðele – L. vidula, fidula, vitula
fork

47. A179
pronged instrument for digging
OE. forca, force – L. furca = pitchfork, forked stake
fuller
A184
one who cleanses and thickenes cloth by treading or beating
OE. fullere – L. fullō or fullāre
genesis
A191
first book of the O.T.; (mode of) origin (7th)
L. – Gr. génesis = generation, creation, nativity, f. gen-, base of
gígnesthai = be born or
produced
Greek
A200
native of Greece
OE. Grēcas – L. Græcus (applied by the Romans to the people who called
themselves Hellēnes) – Gr.
Graikós
Hun
A222
OE. (pl.) Hūne, Hūnas – L. Hunnī, Hūnī, Gr. Hounnoi – Sogdian χwn
inborn
A231
†native
OE. inboren – L. innātus = innate
inch

48. A232
twelfth part of a foot
OE. ynċe – L. uncia = twelfth part
India
A233
OE. India, Indea – L. – Gr. Indía, f. Indós = the river Indus – Pers. hind
Israel
A243
OE. in g. pl. Israela folc – L. Isrāēl – Heb. = he that striveth with God
(patriarch Jacob)
Jesus, Jesu
A247
the Founder of Christianity
not used in OE., in which it was rendered by Hǣlend = Saviour, in ME repr. L.
Iēsūs, obl. cases
Iēsū – Gr. Iēsous, Iēsou – Heb. or Aramaic
keep
A251
†seize, hold, watch (for); pay regard to, observe
OE. cēpan, pt. cēpte, of which no cogns. are known; its sense-development has
been infl. by its
being used to render L. servāre
Kentish
A252
OE. Centisċ, f. Cent – L. Cantium, Gr. Kántion, f. OCelt. kanto- = rim,
border; white
kitchen
A253

49. OE. cyċene – L. cocīna, pop. var. of coquīna, f. coquere = cook
lily
A266
OE. lilie – L. līlium
line 1
A267
flax; flax thread or cloth
OE. lín – L. līnum = flax, rel. to Gr. līnon, Ir. lín, Lith. linaī
line 2
A267
cord, string; string, row, series
OE. līne = rope, line, series, rule – L. līnea
lobster
A269
OE. loppestre, lopystre, lopustre – L. locusta = crustacean, locust
Lucifer
A272
morning star; Satan
OE. – L. lūcifer, f. lūx, lūc- = light + -fer = bearing (ferre = carry, bear)
mallow
A278
plant of genus Malva
OE. mealuwe, -(e)we – L. malva, rel. to Gr. malákhē, molókhē
mandragora
A279
plant of S. Europe and the East having emetic and narcotic properties

50. OE. – L. mandragora – Gr. mandragóras
mass
A284
Eucharistic service
OE. mæsse, messe – L. missa, f. pp. stem miss- of mittere = send, send away
master
A284
man having control or authority; teacher
OE. mæġister, maġister – L. magistrum, nom. magister, usu. referred to magis
= more
mat
A284
piece of coarse fabric of plaited fibre
OE. m(e)atte – L. matta
mile
A293
Roman measure of 1,000 paces estimated at 1,618 yards; unit of measure
derived from this, viz.
1,760 yards in English-speaking countries
OE. mīl fem. – mīl(l)ia, pl. of mīl(l)e = thousand
mill
A293
bulding fitted with apparatus for grinding corn
OE. mylen m. and fem. – mulino, -ina, for molīnus, -īna, -īnum, f. and repl.
mola = grindstone,
mill
minster

51. A294
†monastery; church originating in a monastic establishment; large church
OE. mynster – L. monisterium for monastērium = monastery
mint
A294
aromatic plant
OE. minte – L. ment(h)a – Gr. mínthē
monk
A299
OE. munuc – L. monicus for monachus – Gr. mónakhos, sb. use of adj. single,
solitary, f. mónos =
alone
mussel
A305
bivalve mollusc
OE. mus(c)le, muxle – L. muscula, alt. f. musculus, dim. of mūs = mouse
noon
A314
†ninth hour of the day reckoned from sunrise, 3 p.m.; †office of nones
OE. nōn – L. nōna, fem. sg. of nōnus = ninth
nun
A316
OE. nunne – L. nonna, fem. of nonnus = monk, orig. titles given to elderly
persons
October

52. A320
tenth (formerly eighth) month of the year
OE. – L. octōber, -bris, f. octō = eight
pall
A331
(arch.) cloth, esp. rich cloth; (arch.) robe, mantle
OE. pæll – L. pallium = Greek mantle, philosopher’s cloak
palm
A332
tree of the (chiefly tropical) family Palmae: leaf or branch of a palm tree
OE. palm(a), palme – L. palma = palm (the palmleaf was likened to the hand
with the fingers
extended)
paternoster
A340
the Lord’s Prayer
L. pater noster = our Father, the first words of the Lord’s prayer
pear
A341
OE. pere, peru – L. pira, fem. sg. repl. pirum
pease
A341
(arch. or dial.) pea plant or its seed
OE. pise, pl. pisan – L. pisa, pl. pisæ, for earlier pisum, pl. pisa – Gr.
píson, pl. písa
Pentecost

53. A344
the Jewish Feast of Weeks; Christian feast observed on the seventh Sunday
after Easter, Whitsunday
OE. penteconsten – acc. of L. Pentēcostē – Gr. Pentēkosté, sb. use of fem.
ordinal adj. of
pentékonta = fifty
pepper
A345
OE. piper, -or – L. piper – Gr. péperi
Pharisee
A349
OE. fariseus – L. pharīsæus, -ēus – Gr. pharīsaios – Aram.
phoenix
A350
mythical bird of gorgeous plumage living for centuries in the Arabian desert,
then burning itself
to ashes, from which it emerged with renewed youth
OE. fenix – L. phoenix – Gr. phoínix
pilch
A352
outer garment of skin dressed with the hair or of woollen stuff
OE. pileċe, pyl(e)ċe – L. pellicia = cloak, for pellicea, f. pellis = skin
pile
A352
†dart, shaft, spike
OE. pīl – L. pīlum = javelin